The iron tsuba of Edo’s Akasaka district — openwork sukashi guards that carried the restraint of tea taste into the city of the shōguns. From the Kan’ei era the line ran through nine generations of masters signing Tadamasa and Tadatoki, the early Ko-Akasaka work prized for bold, asymmetric compositions cut in well-forged iron, the later generations refining the house style through the end of the Edo period.
The The Edo Akasaka School (赤坂), active 1624–1860 in Edo across 10 documented smiths: 0 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 0 Jūbun, 0 Jūbi, 0 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 12 Jūyō.
Tadamasa (忠正) — Mainline · 1624-1657. Jūyō. Tadamasa, called Shozaemon, is the first generation of the Akasaka school of iron openwork tsuba. The published sources open the school's record with its migration: 「赤坂鐔は、江戸時代の初頭に京から江戸赤坂に移住し、以後幕末まで栄えた鐔工の一派である」 (Akasaka tsuba are the work of a line that moved from Kyoto to Akasaka in Edo at the start of the Edo period and flourished there to the end of the shogunate). As makers of the pierced iron guard the Akasaka smiths are named beside those of Kyoto, Owari and Higo. The first Tadamasa is said to have worked from the Kan'ei era into Meireki, his manner drawing on Kyoto and Owari openwork while adding points of his own.
None of the early work is signed. The published sources state that 「初代忠正、二代忠正、三代忠虎の所謂上三代の古赤坂は、在銘作が確認されておらず」 (no signed work is confirmed for the so-called upper three generations of old Akasaka, the first Tadamasa, the second Tadamasa and the third Tadatora), and that signatures begin only with the fourth generation Tadatoki around Genroku. Every guard recorded under this name is therefore an attribution, made by the NBTHK on the iron, the composition and a small set of construction features.
Those features are consistent across his guards. The iron is well forged and thick, often the three-layer laminate the records call sanmai-awase, worked to a settled hammered surface. The modelling rises toward the centre, the openwork ties broaden where they meet the rim for stability, and the rim is a strong rounded maru-mimi. The upper part of the seppa-dai narrows to a point, and the kogai-hitsu is cut smaller than the kozuka-hitsu; on one mantis guard the published sources gather these tells together, writing that 「切羽台の上部が尖りごころとなる点や彫りの内側に顕著に表れた筋状の合わせ鍛え目、耳に見られる縞状の線骨には古様がよく示されており」 (the pointed upper seppa-dai, the streaked laminate seams showing inside the carving and the banded lines in the rim display the old manner well).
His designs pierce natural scenes and allusive devices through the iron, finished sparely with hairline engraving. The records list the burning-firewood of Hachi-no-ki, the Shigure-tei pavilion, the Musashino field, the mantis and wind-blown bamboo among the subjects he favoured, and the interlocking-rings design is itself known as one of his. On the Hachi-no-ki guard an axe and a pine-bark lozenge stand for the whole tale of loyalty, a bold composition that the sources call 「堂々としてかつ気韻に満ちた作である」 (dignified and full of spirit). On the Musashino guard 「鉄味も画題も風雅なものとなっており、構図も野趣に満ちた作品となった」 (both the iron and the subject are elegant, and the composition is full of rustic flavour).
The NBTHK distinguishes him from the line that followed. The second Tadamasa bore the same name, worked beside him and shares the construction tells, so those tells mark the old upper generations rather than the founder alone; the guards the NBTHK assigns to the second generation are recorded under that entry. What sets the first apart in the records is age and bearing. Of the interlocking-rings guard the sources write 「古赤坂の中でも品格が一段と高く、時代も最も古く鑑せられる初代忠正の優品である」 (among old Akasaka a work of a distinctly higher dignity, judged the oldest in date, a fine piece of the first Tadamasa).
For the collector he stands at the head of a school whose later generations signed in numbers, while his own hand is known only through attribution. Five of his guards are designated Juyo Tosogu, each judged the first generation in its title, and they come to light only from time to time. Because the upper three generations are unsigned, the published sources make the iron, the pointed seppa-dai and the small kogai-hitsu the evidence by which an early Akasaka guard is recognised.
Masatora (正虎) — Mainline · 1673-1704. Smith of the Edo Akasaka School.
Nobuie (信家) — Mainline · 1573-1644. Smith of the Edo Akasaka School.
Tadamasa (忠正) — Mainline · 1650-1677. Jūyō. The second Tadamasa of the Akasaka school carried his father's name and calling. The published sources state that 「赤坂忠正は、庄左衛門と称し同名で初二代いる」 (Akasaka Tadamasa was called Shozaemon, and there were a first and a second generation of the same name), and from a genealogy the descendant Tadatoki submitted to the shogunate in the Bunsei era they give the dates: 「初代忠正は明暦三年に歿し、二代忠正は延宝五年に歿したと記されている」 (the first Tadamasa died in Meireki 3 and the second in Enpo 5). Like all of the old Akasaka upper three generations, he left no signed work.
Two guards are recorded under his name. The first, an iron tsuba pierced with bamboo, clove and catfish on a gently squared hammered plate, is judged a work of the years when father and son worked side by side: 「二代忠正が初代と共に作鐔していた頃の傑作と推考され、赤坂透鐔全体からみても極めて優れた鐔である」 (thought to be a masterwork from the time the second Tadamasa made guards together with the first, and an exceptionally fine guard even within all Akasaka openwork). The second, pierced with the Musashino field of pampas grass, dew and a crescent moon in yin-yang openwork, the published sources assign directly: 「本作は二代赤坂忠正と鑑せられる鐔で」 (this guard is judged the second Akasaka Tadamasa), praising a refined carving that wastes no relief.
Both guards carry the construction tells the records give to the first and second generations alike, 「上部の尖った切羽台は赤坂初二代の特徴であり、小柄櫃孔にして笄櫃孔が小さいのも初二代の特徴である」 (the pointed upper seppa-dai is a feature of the first and second Akasaka generations, as is a kogai-hitsu smaller than the kozuka-hitsu). His hand is therefore read with his father's, and the NBTHK names the second generation only where it judges a guard his. Both are designated Juyo Tosogu.
Tadanao (忠直) — Mainline · 1661-1688. Smith of the Edo Akasaka School.
Tadatatsu (忠辰) — Mainline · 1648-1673. Smith of the Edo Akasaka School.
Tadashige (忠重) — Mainline · 1730-1816. Jūyō. Tayuemon Tadashige is a signing master of the Akasaka school, the makers of iron openwork tsuba who, the published sources record, moved from Kyoto to the Akasaka district of Edo at the beginning of the Edo period and flourished there until the end of the shogunate. The first three generations, Tadamasa, Tadamasa and Tadatora, the so-called old Akasaka, have no confirmed signed work. Signed pieces begin only with the fourth generation Tadatoki around the Genroku era, signing Bushu ju Akasaka Hikojuro Tadatoki saku, and the main line carried the name Tadatoki down to the ninth generation. Tadashige was a pupil of this Tadatoki line. Most entries say he entered under the fourth generation, one calls him a pupil of the fifth, and the latest reconciles the two: he entered in the fourth generation's old age, but his teacher in practice was the fifth. He was long-lived, with a signature dated at seventy-eight and a last work signed at eighty-four, and the sources praise him as "among the finest hands of the Akasaka tsuba makers from the fourth to the ninth generation"[[c:1]].
His guards keep the Akasaka construction the published sources describe for the school. The iron is at times laminated in the manner called sanmai-awase, the plate is modelled high at the centre, the connecting bars of the openwork widen near the rim to give stability, and the rim is usually a rounded maru-mimi. His technique is ji-sukashi openwork with kebori, on iron plates of a large and dignified size. The sources dwell on the steel: the forging is superb, the rust colour has a sheen, and on one daisho the colour of the patina is called clear.
What the sources single out in him is design. Novelty of composition is one of the points of Akasaka work, and Tadashige, they write, was especially strong in design, "enterprising enough to take in the pattern designs of Ogata Korin"[[c:2]]. His large openwork guard of old pines, called a representative work of his hand, sets two pine branches of different sizes in a three-tiered matsukaze design that the sources call "Tadashige's own invention, not seen even in Higo tsuba"[[c:3]]. A daisho pair signed at seventy-eight shows a plum tree giving off its faint scent under a blue moon in the depth of winter, and the sources find that it "well displays the character of Akasaka tsuba, whose forte is stylish openwork"[[c:4]].
His subjects draw on nature and on old stories, as the school's do. Beside the pines and the plum stand a tsuba of sacred deer with a torii, signed with the place name Kasugayama, a guard of paulownia framed in a window, and a round iron guard of the yellow hollyhock, whose full, soft modelling the sources read as showing the skill that makes him the white eyebrow of the Akasaka makers. On the larger guards the build is big and dignified and the cutting of the openwork is keen. The paulownia guard, which takes the Higo master Kanshiro as its model and adds a new freshness, is modelled with the flesh dropped away at the rim, and the sources note that this modelling "well shows Tadashige's particular character"[[c:5]].
The signature itself carries a question the published sources address directly. The paulownia guard bears the age inscription of eighty-four, his last, and is judged "from the style of the signature a substitute work and substitute signature"[[c:6]] by his eldest son Tadayoshi. Even so the sources call it an outstanding work that shows his forte, so the late age-dated pieces stand at the edge between his own hand and his workshop.
For the collector Tadashige is represented by five tsuba at the Juyo level, all signed, with no higher designations and no recorded provenance. They include the old pines held as his representative work, the plum daisho and the age-dated pieces of his final years. A signed Tadashige of his large, inventive openwork appears only from time to time, so a documented example is a deliberate find for a collector of Edo iron tsuba.
Tadamune (忠宗) — Mainline · 1707-1746. Smith of the Edo Akasaka School.
Tadanori (忠則) — Mainline · 1730-1780. Smith of the Edo Akasaka School.
Tadatoki (忠時) — Mainline · 1704-1764. Smith of the Edo Akasaka School.